"The public presence of Nicholas Rena as a ceramic artist in the international field has been quickly consolidated. He has become known for monumentality. Perhaps you might expect this of an ex-architect - a grander, deeper feeling for interior space and containing wall." Alison Britton OBE, 2003
Biographical NotesBorn in 1963, Nicholas Rena's postgraduate qualifications include an MA in Architecture from Cambridge University (1986) and MA in Ceramics from the Royal College of Art (1995).
He was educated at Eton College where he studied art under Gordon Baldwin, who was to have a lasting influence on him. His work is represented in the permanent public collections of the V&A Museum, the Louvre Paris, the British Council, the Crafts Council, Canary Wharf in London, and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, amongst others. He has exhibited internationally in both solo and group exhibitions.
Nicholas Rena lives in Chiswick, London with his wife and their two sons.
FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS:
Selected Nicholas Rena works on display at 10 Downing Street, London, January 2012 curated by Janice Blackburn
Sir John Soane's Museum, January 2013 http://www.soane.org
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS:
Monumental Red Bowl is now on display in the V&A together with other Nicholas Rena pieces. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1191358/form-red-bowl/
Ceramiques Contemporaines at Mouvements Modernes/Galerie Dutko 2011 4 rue de Bretonvilliers, 75004 Paris
Tel (Paris) 01 43 26 17 77
Nicholas Rena is represented in the UK, exclusively by Marsden Woo Gallery 17-18 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V ODN
http://www.marsdenwoo.com/rena/nr5.htm Tel: 020 7336 6396 for Tatjana Marsden
The Grainer Collection: Contemporary British Studio Ceramics, The Mint Museum of Craft & Design, 220 N.Tryon Street, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, Fall 2010. A colour catalogue, published by Yale University Press, will accompany this exhibition. For further information contact michelle.mickey@mintmuseum.org
PAST EXHIBITIONS:
Selected for Second European Triennial of Ceramics & Glass, Mons, September 2010
Palais du Louvre Paris, musee des Arts decoratifs 11 June - 04 October 2009
Saatchi Gallery May 2009, May 2010
Sotheby's London & Sotheby's New York (curated by Janice Blackburn)
Phillips de Pury, New York
Jerwood Prize 2008, Jerwood Space
Jerwood Prize 2001 at the Crafts Council Gallery
Marsden Woo Gallery, Clerkenwell, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2009
The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh 2002, 2007, 2008
Galerie Norby, Copenhagen, Denmark (with Karen Bennicke) November 2003
British Ceramics, Keramikmuseet Grimmerhus, Denmark, 2000
The Garth Clark Gallery, New York, 2000
Firing Imaginations, British Council Touring Exhibition, Brazil, 2000
Oxford Gallery, Oxford, New Masters, Old Masters, 2000
Galerie Binnen, Amsterdam, 1999
Driven to Abstraction, Edinburgh International Festival Exhibition 1999
Lynne Strover Gallery, Cambridge,1999
Contemporary Applied Arts Gallery 1997
Galerie Puls, BrusselsThe Woo Foundation Bursary Award 2000
Nicholas Rena is a member of the Peter Dormer Committee at the Royal College of Art, London.